Owing to a communication breakdown last week, a digger was sent through the greyhen’s nest at precisely the wrong moment. I could hold forth for hours on the fury and disappointment I felt when I saw that she had been put off her nest, but the fact is that it’s too late to whine about it now. I just need to keep my fingers crossed that one of the other greyhens on the farm will have had more luck.
As a full stop to the breeding season, I spotted that the blackcock has just started his moult. Over the next few weeks, feathers from the back of his head and neck will fall out and will be replaced with neatly barred greyhen feathers – a transition that is linked to lowering testosterone levels. If last year is anything to go by, he will continue to lek for another three weeks while becoming ever scruffier and unkempt. In the first week of July, he will go into full moult and will vanish until late summer.
It has been a disappointing end to a promising breeding season for this bird and his greyhen, but it won’t help to go on about it. As Churchill would have said, I need to KBO.
Bog Myrtle & Peat 
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